The first in-season FBS head coaching change involves former Boise State assistant

UTEP head coach Sean Kugler is pictured before a game against Oklahoma in Norman, Okla., on Sept. 2.
Sue Ogrocki
AP

The Football Bowl Subdivision’s first in-season coaching change of 2017 came Sunday.

UTEP head coach Sean Kugler stepped down following an 0-5 start, one in which the Miners have lost by an average of 31 points per game. Kugler was Boise State’s offensive line coach in 2006 during the first Fiesta Bowl-winning season.

Another former Boise State assistant, Brent Pease, was Kugler’s offensive coordinator last season and the first three games of this season, but the Miners scored just 37 points in those games and he was fired.

Kugler coached offensive line for the Buffalo Bills from 2007-09 and the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2010-12 before being hired at UTEP, his alma mater. He went 18-36 as the Miners’ head coach, reaching one bowl game, the 2014 New Mexico Bowl.

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The remaining staff for the Miners has two Boise State ties: former Bronco player and defensive line coach Andrew Browning is in his fifth season, and ex-Boise State assistant Tom Mason is in his second season as defensive coordinator. An interim coach was not immediately named. Mason was the Broncos’ interim coach in 1996 as Pokey Allen sought cancer treament, and was SMU’s interim coach in 2014 after June Jones stepped down. He went 1-9 both seasons.